Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Free-for-All 2008: Primary Games

With moreandmore states holding early primaries, pundits are baffled as to how the primaries will play out.

Does the overload on February 5th give early states more power or less? Will any candidate have the time needed to dispatch some of his or her opponents before the 5th? And if not, will the frontloading paradoxically lead to a protracted battle between two candidates in one (or both) of the parties.

While I can no better predict the individual outcomes, I am aiming to apply some basic methods of estimation, which would help us understand what really motivates primary voters. Do their own preferences formed over the Long Campaign matter most? Or are they swayed by a candidate's recent successes and their own desire to pick a winner?

Thus, I posit a model of primary vote share determination where candidate i's vote share in state s (vi,s) is a linear function of pre-primary polling data (pi,s), results of previous states' (1,2...s-1) primaries weighted by size and date (f(vi,1,...,vi,s-1)), and delegates already locked up by the candidatate (deli).

vi,s = alpha1*pi,s + alpha2*f(vi,1,...,vi,s-1) + alpha3*deli

With the data from previous elections available, a model such as this one could be estimated to yield the coefficients (alpha1, alpha2, and alpha3); then, with polling data and election dates from this cycle, the entire primary season could be simulated. (If any readers have access to that type of data, I would be very grateful for help on this project).

The latest media chatter is almost constant from October. The big gainers are Hillary and Huckabee. The Republican side continues to be a dogfight between the Big Three, with Fred Thompson slipping and out of contention in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Rank

Candidate

Chatter

Rank
Change

R.1

Rudy Giuliani

5,460

0

R.2

Sen. John McCain

3,469

+1

R.3

Gov. Mitt Romney

3,402

-1

R.4

Fred Thompson

2,919

0

R.5

Rep. Ron Paul

1,611

0

R.6

Gov. Mike Huckabee

1,283

+1

R.7

Sen. Sam Brownback

285

+2

R.8

Rep. Tom Tancredo

276

+4

R.9

Rep. Duncan Hunter

212

+2

R.10

Newt Gingrich

98

-2

...............

...............................................

.......................

...............

D.1

Sen. Hillary Clinton

9,439

0

D.2

Sen. Barack Obama

5,780

0

D.3

Sen. John Edwards

5,515

0

D.4

Sen. Christopher Dodd

1,145

+5

D.5

Sen. Joseph Biden

940

+2

D.6

Gov. Bill Richardson

937

0

D.7

Al Gore

763

-3

D.8

Rep. Dennis Kucinich

548

+2

D.9

Mike Gravel

231

+2

Notes: The Chatter Rankings are created by searching each candidate's name plus "2008" in the Google News database. Tested but not qualifying is Alan Keyes (28). Purged this month are almost all non-contenders; the only ones who remain are distinct vice-presidential possibilities. The purged are Condi Rice (who said she will not be VP), Chuck Hagel, Howard Dean, and John Kerry. Al Gore remains.